Christopher Monckton: a Peerless Prevaricator

Christopher Monckton: a Peerless Prevaricator

Tim Lambert at Deltoid has a hilarious wrap of the recent inaccuracies - nay, outright lies - of the ever-entertaining Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, denier for hire.

Monckton surfaced most recently as a contact and signatory to the letter of 100 climate quibblers that landed pretty much unnoticed at the Bali conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I suggested earlier that it should be embarrassing for signatories to be seen in a group that included the likes of Tim Ball and Fred Singer. I would like, here, to apologize for having overlooked the Viscount on that short list; Monckton is at least as embarrassing as those other two guys.

And let's not forget the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, which appears to have sponsored the letter, and their public relations agent, Terence Corcoran at the National Post, who can always be relied upon to get these characters a little ink. When I worked for him (at the Vancouver Sun), National Post publisher Gordon Fisher used to get all fussy about only putting credible people in the paper. It's good to see that he is now so confident (or so despairing) of the Post's reputation that this is no longer a roadblock for the wannabe famous and influential.

and BTW, I pay no attention to lame character assinations either.
Not liking somone’s views or politics does not make them wrong.
If you don’t like what hes says then point out what about the geologic record he got wrong.
Could not care less who payed him or who he hangs out with.
Such attacks are the domain of advocacy groups not science.

that these arguments are new. In fact, there is nothing here that hasn’t been trumpeted before, and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Saying it over and over again doesn’t make it true.

There is a very good post over at RealClimate right now re: the physics and chemical properties of CO2. Taking everything right back to first principles (ie: what do we know about this very basic substance?), you can’t explain climate change without dealing with the physics, viz, there are predictable consequences of changing the concentration of CO2 in a given mixture of gases. That’s not theory, that’s empirically demonstrable. It’s almost a no-brainer, a straight-forward correlation. Ever hear of Occam’s Razor? Or as Ray Pierrehumbert puts it, “It’s the physics, stupid!” (no offense intended). The URL is too long, so here’s the article heading: Les Chevaliers de l’Ordre de la Terre Plate, Part II: Courtillot’s Geomagnetic Excursion.

At what?
Sea level rise that has been rising at the same pase for hundreds of years.
The nice warm weather here in Canada?
Glaciers that are receeding and uncovering old evidence of villages or forests….

I keep hearing this claim that “Glaciers … are receeding sic and uncovering old evidence of villages or forests”, but I have never been able to find anything written about such findings. Can you oblige?

Geez. I have seen several such references over the past six months but I don’t keep a database of links on my computer just in case some one asked for proof.
The point I want to make is that there is lots of information available. Open your minds and seek it out. Its not my job or desire to spoon feed anyone.
However, here is one recent one that is representative of the lot.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=1 enjoy.

Watch yourself, young fella. The majority of posters here have dug a lot deeper into the science of AGW than the facile and pompous writings of the dilettante Monckton! It is considered standard procedure around here to cite your sources for that sort of information, so get used to it & start keeping track. “I heard it somewhere” is not good enough.

And if you are getting your information from climateaudit.org, I suggest that you should “Open your [mind] and seek … out” some more credible sources.

We’ll keep that in mind, the next time you cite a random anecdote as evidence to support your hysterical Global Warming theme. Dozens and dozens of examples of which can be found on your website.

“1) that it was cold at your house yesterday;”

Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Or did you think my ice scraper broke because of Global Warming?

“2) that you let your vehicle run pointlessly for an extra 15 minutes or so;”

Actually, it wasn’t pointless at all – it was nice and toasty, and most of the ice was gone from my windshield by the time I finished my coffee. Oh, and it was more like twenty minutes.

But you’ll be relieved to know that I finished installing the remote starter this weekend, so I can light that rocket while I’m still getting dressed every morning. That’s what I call efficiency – at least for us people who’s time is actually worth something. Around here, remote starters are very handy, and also very popular – just like gun racks.

“that your conveyance of choice is a truck.”

Not much of a choice at all. Ever drive through the bush with a Prius? Ever hit a moose with a Smart Car? Vehicles like that would sink so far into the mud, you wouldn’t even be able to read your “Impeach Bush” or “Visualise World Peace” bumper stickers.

“This information causes us to conclude:
a) that a single cold day in December means that global warming is not happening?”

A single cold day in December? Actually, around here they’re all cold. But then, being December, in northern Canada, that’s what usually happens … just like every December. The white-outs in September are sort of a clue.

“b) that you positively revel in being part of the problem?”

Perish the thought! I’ll have you know I thoughtfully depositied my broken ice scraper in the local recycling centre – which, in this case, happened to be the nearest snow bank.

“Speak up if you’re struggling to work out the right answer.”

Oh? There’s a “right” answer? What was the question again?

“I’m sure someone online will be willing to help you out.”

I invite you to come up here and personally lay some of your wisdom on us. One of the bars around here has regular open mike comedy nights. Dress warm!

It seems Gary thinks everyone is worried about today’s climate. Today’s climate appears to be anomalously warm when judged by the best available data, but why not take him at his word on this point? It shows that he hasn’t figured out that people are more likely to worry about the future than the past. So, thinking of the future, is Gary willing to put money behind his prediction of ‘continued cooling’ in the future? He didn’t reply last time I asked. I’ll understand if you find that hard to believe. After all, he’s posted the same video with similar introductory texts on two very different threads so should have had time to read, think, and reply. But I suspect, true to AGW denial form, he hasn’t looked at the Deltoid page linked in this thread, where Monckton (note, not Carter) is described as ignoring his inaccuracies, and Gary will follow the same trend ignoring things he has a hard time answering and just spewing crap instead. Happy holidays.

And even if there is, I am not the one making wild claims about the future climate, you are.
I am simply saying that what is happening now is perfectly natural, and not under anyone’s control.
I have no idea what it will do. It sure looks like it will continue to cool but it may also warm again before it’s done. It has happend many times before and will happen meny times again. It will do whatever is natural wheather you AGW cultists try to stop it or not.

Just our of couriosity, how would you arrange a bet?

BTW: The $125000 is still availabel from junkscience.
Seems nobody has been able to offer ANY concreat proof for AGW yet. Why don’t you give it a try?

I’ve been asking since the mid-90’s what the AGW deniers would consider concrete evidence, fighting the whole while their use of the word “proof” (I don’t believe proofs exist in the natural sciences). Never did I get an acceptable response (one person [adopted the name John Galt as I remember] wrote several times on the National Post forum site that he wouldn’t accept anything less than 100% proof that the human species would go extinct unless we reduced CO2). So since then I’ve restricted myself to better-defined challenges.

Here’s what you wrote on Tuesday: “As the world cools even more in the coming year (as it has done consistantly for the past 7) interest in dumb mythology like AGW will slowly dwindly to the joke it really is.” What was my wild claim? That increased greenhouse gas concentrations will enhance the greenhouse effect? Yep, I’m a maverick. You on the other hand predicted that ‘the world will cool even more in the coming year (as it has consistently done).’ Would you like to add on to the original bet of warming versus cooling from 1998-2003 to 2012-2017?

You can Google climate bets to learn more. One page that you could get to is: http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/search/label/betting%20markets
Check it out. The mechanics of a bet between you and I could be difficult because we’re quite anonymous. Otherwise I’d recommend something like donating $400 to the political party of the winner’s choice (can be checked through this website: http://www.elections.ca/eccandidates/help_e.html#2); you’d get $300 back on your tax return. We could do it through a website or a lawyer in order to keep it anonymous, but those choices have costs. Do you have any ideas?

Steve:
I am intregued. I will check the links for betting.
At first blush, I would suggest that I would rather donate to a non political cause however. Child releaf, Womens shelters, poor in Africa etc.
Interesting Idea.

What would I consider proof?
Not sure, as I have seen nothing so far that comes even close. Certainly somthing more than the IPCC position of;
We can’t think of anyting that really explains what is happening so we will go with CO2”.
Definately not the results of a primitive computer model.
Perhaps if all the other more plausable explainations were really eliminated with verifiable science and the defined AGW benchmarks were actually reached.
Perhaps a start would be to exlain why the Co2 corolation is just sort of close while the Sun cycle corrolation is nearly perfect. Also if all the past climate optimums illistrated in carters presentation could be explained away.
In other words, show convincingly why the overwhelming volume of evidence for anything but AGW should be ignored.

Lastly, when I said your wild claims, I was refering to the AGW industry in general.
Like Hansen and his 25 meters of sea level rise this century.
Like Gore and his Kiliminjaro claim.
Like Mann and his disaperring MWP. (my favorite)

and on and on…..

I simply get tired of hearing nonsense like that (used to scare children and boost sales of scam items like carbon credits) and tend to lump all the AGW faithful together.

I will try to be more specific.

Anyway, I will consider the bet challenge and let you know. I am by no means a rich person so it might be more like $200, but still could be fun. Any any outcome will benifit somone that needs it. Cheers.

Good grief, you should spend that money on remedial English classes. If that is the level of your education abilities why on earth are you trying to discuss the basic science behind AGW? You are completely lacking in even basic science skills let alone English comprehension.

Don’t ever tell anyone where you got your education (I assume that you did get some) since you will be doing that institution a grave disservice.

Gary, I’m glad you’re intrigued. Over the holidays, I suggest that you go to (I’ve referenced these webpages often) either the New Scientist resource (linked on the front page of desmogblog) or to skepticalscience.com to check on comprehensive arguments against your position that the mainstream AGW community makes wild claims. You can learn about what those claims actually are (e.g., it’s important to realize that ‘warmists’ don’t contend that factors other than CO2 affect climate) and why they are supportable. I’ve mentioned before that it’s annoying the AGW deniers almost never argue with the analyses rebutting the AGW deniers accusations/claims; they just repeat the same accusations/claims. Take the next step. It would make the discussion more interesting.

Regarding the bet, the political party contribution idea has a threefold justification: it’s publicly verifiable, either one of us can make it something distasteful for the other one to do, and at an amount of $400, it only really costs $100 because you get 75% back when you do your tax return. At $200 you would only lose $50. If I won and you had to pay $200 to charity, you would only get about 12-25% back (depending on how much you give to charity). The most important of my justifications is the distastefulness – it’s not much of a punishment if it’s something you would enjoy doing anyway. But I look forward to any more specific proposal you come up with.

In this climate debate, as in many others (evolution comes to mind),there will always remain people who will refuse to accept the most obvious facts and the simplest logic. After all, there still is a Flat Earth Society.

Perhaps we should just ignore them and only react when they make some false claim about facts.

The would be because Deltoid and Desmog to a great degree and closed minded AGW cultist that are no longer interested in the science.
They, like realclimate stopped paying attention as soon as it became obvious that there is a lot of money in the AGW industry. Descent only insures that you won’t get any of it.
Complience is rewarded.

The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has stopped

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.